2015-07-17 发表于央行观察

英格兰银行坐落于Bank地铁站附近的Threadneedle Street针线街，它也经常在漫画家的笔下以做针线活的有钱抠门老太婆的形象出现。

在17世纪末英格兰银行建立的时候，它还不是一家国有银行，而是有很多公众股东，记载这些人名字和认股金额的大册子现在还在展出。它的股票一直被看作是非常稳健的投资工具，博物馆还有一幅画作描绘了股东们在分红日前来柜台取息的情景。英格兰银行当然有过不少股东，其中有一位还是音乐大师亨德尔。

亨德尔除了因音乐方面的成就葬在威斯敏斯特教堂之外，还在金融上很有头脑。他刚来到英国就投资了英格兰银行的股票小赚一笔，之后还投资了臭名昭著的南海公司。南海公司是历史上第一次股票泡沫，股价在几个月内翻了好几倍然后轰然崩盘，连数一数二的大宽客牛顿也黯然亏钱，但亨德尔却在泡沫破裂前出货离场，居然还赚了一笔。

比起股票泡沫，那时候对金融构成最大威胁的是战争。战争让国王发行国债把公众手里的贵金属圈走，拿到欧洲支持军队和其他列强打仗，于是贵金属的挤兑以及国债的偿付是英国金融界萦绕不去的魔咒。多次违约的国债让不少大银行家破产，英格兰银行还展出了某位英国国王的欠条，不过后来人们经常把一根大棍子按锯齿形劈成两半，一半给债权人一半给债务人，听起来很像信陵君的虎符。之所以要锯成锯齿状，是因为锯齿本身代表了欠钱的金额。

这些木头借条后来渐渐退出流行，在1834年英国议会决定把一部分借条烧掉，这个想法挺平常，孟尝君的门客冯谖也是通过烧的办法销毁了农民和孟尝君的借条。但在烧的时候人们用力过猛，把这些木头扔到了烧煤的炉子里，结果火着得有点大，居然把作为英国议会大楼的威斯敏斯特宫给烧了。这算是金融危机给实体经济造成损失么？

除了不还钱的国王，还有不让取钱的央行。比如英国为了全力对付拿破仑，英格兰银行也曾不得不停止对公众兑换黄金。不过如果是因为和拿破仑打仗的话，暂停兑换黄金感觉也算不了什么大事。而在很长时间里，英格兰银行还是颇守信用的，公众可以凭英格兰银行发行的“银行券”兑换金币。以至于直到现在，英镑纸币上仍然用英文印着“我保证向持有人在要求时支付若干金镑”，一句在英格兰银行签发的最早的银行券上就写了的话。不过那个时候银行券的金额有零有整，流通性还不太好，过了一些时间之后才变成了十进制的。

承兑的黄金一般不会是大金块，而是金币，而铸造金币的是英国铸币厂，就是牛顿当过厂领导的那个。铸币的历史源远流长，大英博物馆就展出了被认为是历史上最早货币的吕底亚金币，而铸币工具也从简单便得复杂。和我国喜欢的往模具里面灌铜水的方法不同，欧洲人民普遍喜欢往硬币上压制图案，比如希腊人就喜欢在他们的德拉克马上印猫头鹰，两千多年后他们在希腊版本的欧元硬币上还复刻了一回。

压制的图案以及文字和数字成为历史学家非常重视的资料。罗马皇帝尼禄在不同时期发行的印有自己头像的硬币居然有着不同的胖瘦，脖子粗了好多，脸也大了。而很多随葬的钱币也成了考古学家确定精确年代的证据，甚至还有一些钱币由于印了很多国王的名字，而让考古学家了解了一个原先扑朔迷离的王朝，这简直和甲骨印证《史记》记载的商朝国王姓名如出一辙。

英国的造币厂很长时间都在伦敦塔，所以游客去伦敦塔的时候往往会参观一下那里的造币博物馆，不过也有像我和某小伙伴一样认为去伦敦塔主要就是看造币的。英国从前用英镑-克朗-先令的体系，上世纪中叶改成了现在十进制的英镑-便士体系。纸币的最大挑战当然就是印假币，英格兰银行也和造假币的罪犯斗争了很久，大英博物馆也抱怨每年收到的游客捐赠里有不少美元都是假的。

而硬币的最大挑战是不足值，比如一枚声称含有1克黄金的硬币其实只含有0.9克。所以当时有一拨搞金融的人，可以和现在靠搞在交易所隔壁放电脑主机的媲美。这些人的工具不是计算机，而是大皮袋和大剪刀。他们把很多金币放在皮袋里猛烈摇晃，每枚金币都掉下一些金粉，掉得多了，原先的金币还可以花，但其实含金量少了，而金粉积攒起来可以造一枚新币。大剪刀则更生猛，直接把足值硬币的边缘剪掉。

银行当然很精明，他们采用了很精密的天平来衡量这些硬币，足值的收下，不足的不收，但此外由于造币工艺不高，还可能有比面值含金量更重的硬币，这些货币肯定就被银行永远的封存了，听上去被坑的永远是老百姓。除了银行，维京海盗们也都随身携带天平称量硬币重量，他们的口号，据大英博物馆说，是“不贸易就打劫”（trade or raid）。据大英博物馆说他们还曾经去过美国，不过不知道他们有没有打劫过印第安人了。

The Bank of England is located on Threadneedle Street near the Bank subway station. It is often depicted in cartoonists' drawings as a rich and stingy old lady doing sewing work.

When the Bank of England was established in the late 17th century, it was not a state-owned bank but had many public shareholders. Records of their names and subscribed amounts are still on display in large books. Its stocks have always been seen as very stable investment tools. The museum even has a painting depicting shareholders coming to the counter to collect interest before dividend days. Among the Bank of England's many shareholders was the music master Handel.

Apart from his musical achievements, Handel was also financially astute. As soon as he arrived in Britain, he invested in Bank of England stocks and made a small profit. Later, he also invested in the infamous South Sea Company. The South Sea Company was the first stock bubble in history. The stock price multiplied several times within a few months and then collapsed dramatically. Even the renowned speculator Newton lost money, but Handel managed to cash out and make a profit before the bubble burst.

Compared to stock bubbles, the biggest threat to finance at that time was war. War led the king to issue national debt to seize precious metals from the public's hands, obtaining support from Europe to fund the military and confront other powers. Consequently, the squeeze on precious metals and the repayment of national debt became an enduring curse on the British financial sector. Multiple defaults on national debt led to the bankruptcy of many prominent bankers. The Bank of England even displays an IOU from a British king. However, people often liken the splitting of a large stick into two halves, one for the creditor and one for the debtor, to it – a concept similar to the tally system used in ancient China. The notched stick represented the amount owed.

These wooden IOUs gradually fell out of favor, and in 1834, the British Parliament decided to burn a portion of them. This idea seems ordinary, similar to how Feng Xian destroyed the IOUs of the farmers and Meng Changjun. However, when they burned the sticks, they threw them into the coal-burning furnace with excessive force, resulting in a massive fire that actually burned down Westminster Palace, which served as the Parliament building. Does this count as a financial crisis causing losses to the real economy? Besides kings who didn't repay debts, there were also central banks that prohibited withdrawals. For example, in order to fully counter Napoleon, the Bank of England had to temporarily suspend the public's conversion of gold. However, if this was due to fighting against Napoleon, suspending gold conversion didn't seem like a significant issue. For a long time, the Bank of England was quite reliable, and the public could redeem gold coins with the banknotes it issued. Even now, the English banknotes still bear the inscription in English, "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of pounds," a phrase that was written on the earliest banknotes issued by the Bank of England. However, at that time, the denominations of the banknotes were sometimes fractional, sometimes whole, and their circulation wasn't very good; it wasn't until later that they became decimalized.

Accepted gold wasn't usually in the form of large gold bars but gold coins. The British Mint, the place that minted coins, was led by Newton at one point. The history of coin minting is long and diverse. The British Museum has on display the Lycian coins believed to be the earliest form of currency in history, and coin-minting tools have become important historical artifacts. Unlike the Chinese method of pouring molten copper into molds, Europeans preferred to imprint patterns on coins using force, such as the Greeks' preference for stamping an owl on their drachmas. Over two thousand years later, they replicated this on the Greek version of the Euro coins. The imprinted patterns, along with the accompanying text and numbers, have become valuable sources for historians. For instance, Roman Emperor Nero's coins, imprinted with his own portrait and issued during different periods, exhibit variations in his appearance, with a thicker neck and larger face in some. Many coins found in tombs have provided evidence for archaeologists to accurately date specific periods, and some coins with numerous kings' names have given archaeologists insights into formerly obscure dynasties, similar to the oracle bones confirming the names of Shang Dynasty kings in the Records of the Grand Historian.

The British mint was based in the Tower of London for a long time. Therefore, tourists often visit the Mint Museum when they go to the Tower of London, although some, like my friend and I, believe that the primary reason to visit the Tower of London is to see the minting process. In the past, Britain used the pound-crown-shilling system, and in the mid-20th century, it switched to the current decimalized pound-pence system. The greatest challenge of paper money is undoubtedly counterfeiting, and the Bank of England has fought counterfeiters for a long time. The British Museum has even lamented that many donations they receive each year in US dollars are fake.

The greatest challenge for coins is underweighting, such as a coin claiming to contain 1 gram of gold actually only containing 0.9 grams. So, at the time, there was a group of financial people who could rival those who now profit from placing computer servers next to stock exchanges. These people didn't use computers; they used large leather bags and big scissors. They put many coins in bags and shook them vigorously, causing each coin to shed some gold dust. After shedding enough, the original coins could still be spent, but in reality, their gold content decreased. The accumulated gold dust could then be used to create new coins. The big scissors were even more effective – they directly cut the edges off coins of full value.

Of course, the bank was very clever; they used precise balances to weigh these coins. They accepted full-value coins and rejected those of lesser value. However, due to the low level of minting technology, there could also be coins with a higher gold content than their face value. These coins were likely sealed away forever by the bank, which appears to have been a long-standing scheme to swindle the general public. In addition to banks, Viking pirates also carried scales to weigh the weight of coins. According to the British Museum, their motto was "trade or raid." According to the British Museum, they also visited the United States, but it's unclear if they raided Native Americans.